Big Road Blues

Big Road Blues Show 4/19/26: I’m Gonna Rock Your Wig – Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee Pt. 4

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Sonny Terry	Sonny's Jump	Vocal, Harmonica and Washboard Band
Sonny Terry	Beautiful City	Vocal, Harmonica and Washboard Band
Sonny Terry	Crazy Man Blues	Vocal, Harmonica and Washboard Band
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Four O'Clock Blues	Gotham Record Sessions
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Baby, Let's Have Some Fun	Down Home Blues Classics 1943-1953
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Wine Headed Woman	Gotham Record Sessions
Brownie McGhee	Worrying Over You	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 2
Brownie McGhee	Christina	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Dangerous Woman (With A 45 In Her Hand)	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 2
Doctor Gaddy And His Orchestra w/ Brownie McGhee	Doctor Gaddy Blues	Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & the Northeastern States
Doctor Gaddy And His Orchestra w/ Brownie McGhee	Evil Man Blues	Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & the Northeastern States
Square Walton w/ Sonny Terry	Fish Tail Blues	Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & the Northeastern States
Sonny Terry	Sonny Is Drinking	RCA Downhome Blues Vol. 1
Sonny Terry	Hooray, Hooray	RCA Downhome Blues Vol. 1
Sonny Terry	I'm Gonna Rock Your Wig	RCA Downhome Blues Vol. 1
Sonny Terry	Hoopin' And Jumpin'	RCA Downhome Blues Vol. 1
Brownie McGhee	Me And Sonny	The Folkways Years 1945-1959
Brother John Sellers w/ Sonny Terry	I Love You Baby	Brother John Sellers Sings Blues And Folk Songs
Sonny Terry	Louise	RCA Downhome Blues Vol. 1
Reverend Gary Davis w/ Sonny Terry	Death Is Riding Everyday	Sonny & His Mouth Harp & Blind Gary Davis Singing
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Climbing On Top Of The Hill	Old Town Blues Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Love's a Disease	Old Town Blues Vol. 1
Alonzo Scales w/ Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	My Baby Likes To Shuffle	Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & the Northeastern States
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	When It's Love Time	Rub A Little Boogie
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Ride And Roll	Groove Jumping!
Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee	Key to the Highway	Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee	Gone But Not Forgotten	The Bluesmen
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Hudy Leadbelly	California Blues
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Blues All Around My Head	Blues All Around My Head
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Poor Man Blues	The Folkways Years 1944-1963
Cousin Leroy w/ Sonny Terry	Up The River	Livin' That Wild Life
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	I Need a Woman	Old Town Blues Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	She Loves So Easy	Old Town Blues Vol. 1
Brownie McGhee	Cholly Blues	The Folkways Years 1945-1959
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee	My Baby Done Changed The Lock	Newport Folk Festival: Best Of The Blues 1959 -1968
Lightnin' Hopkins, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Big Joe Williams	Wimmin from Coast to Coast	Lightnin' Hopkins & The Blues Summit

Show Notes:

Today is the final show devoted to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee who forged a decades long partnership in the early 40s, cutting numerous recordings together as well as recording independently. Back in 2011 I did air a show that spotlighted the music the duo recorded shortly after they arrived in New York and the artists they worked with such as Champion Jack Dupree, Bobby Harris, Bobby Gaddy and others. I’ve decided to end the shows at 1960, when the duo became firmly entrenched in the folk blues style and the records became a bit predictable and less exciting. That’s not to say they didn’t make good records after this period, they certainly did, but it becomes a pursuit of diminishing gains.

Sonny Is Drinking The end of our third show took us up to 1952. As I put those two shows to bed, I finally located my copy of the discography, That’s The Stuff: The Recordings of Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Sticks McGee and J.C. Burris by Chris Smith. Today’s notes come from Chris’s book which includes an excellent overview of the duo’s career. As Chris writes, the duo was “in varying degrees at different times – a creative partnership, but it was also a marketing device, a means to obtain work from (mostly) white audiences who were keen on the idea of musical soulmates, often seeing the partnership as a metaphor for the liberal dream of universal brotherhood.”

Sonny Terry was working as a street musician when he made his debut on record in 1937, accompanying Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller’s records were popular, and he had been recording regularly since 1935. Terry might have continued working in music at this marginal level, but for the operations of chance. John Hammond Sr had wanted to book Fuller for his ‘From Spirituals to Swing’ concert but found when he arrived in Durham that Fuller was in jail. As a result, it was Sonny Terry, led by Fuller’s washboard player, Bull City Red (George Washington) who appeared at Carnegie Hall just before Christmas 1938, and also, it now seems likely, at the second concert, a year later. These recordings were not released commercially until many years later, but the events brought Sonny Terry to the attention of folklorists like Alan Lomax, who noted him for the Library of Congress the day after the first concert, and to the musically inclined among the New York left.

In the short term, appearing at Carnegie Hall made little difference to Terry’s working life, and he went back to playing in Durham, and to recording with Fuller and Red, often as a member of ‘Brother George and His Sanctified Singers’, a recording group of shifting membership. Blind Boy Fuller’s health took a serious turn for the worse in 1940, and his manager, the entrepreneurially minded J.B. Long, was looking for other blues artists to present to OKeh. It appears that Long took Brownie McGhee and his harmonica player, Jordan Webb, to Chicago when Fuller, Terry and Red recorded in June 1940, and that Brownie sang a rather nervous and wooden ‘Precious Lord’, backed by Fuller, Red, and the two harps of Sonny Terry and Jordan Webb. The first Brownie McGhee record, then, was also the first Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee record. The recording cut after it was Blind Boy Fuller’s last, and by August Brownie McGhee was signed to OKeh, for whom he recorded regularly and quite extensively until October 1941.

In 1947 Brownie’s “Baseball Boogie” was attracting attention, the Terry/McGhee duo was seldom in a position to work together, for on 10 January 1947 Sonny Terry had opened in the role of ‘Sunny’ in the long running Broadway musical ‘Finian’s Rainbow. In March of that year, Terry made the first of a series of sessions for Capitol, which resulted in a number of uncompromising, and very good, blues records, which nevertheless seem to have been aimed primarily at white listeners. Brownie McGhee spent much of the late forties recording as a name artist for Savoy, producing a series of excellent R&B sides. McGhee cut his next big R&B hit, the suave ‘My Fault’, which finally persuaded Savoy to sign him on formal contract terms. Brownie was also supplementing his income by recording as a session guitarist for Continental, Apollo, Abbey and other companies. With his go-getting energy, and good contacts in both Harlem and the record industry, he was probably acting as a talent broker too; he made the connection between Gary Davis and Lenox, and may well have brought artists like Leroy Dallas, Big Chief Ellis and Ralph Willis to the notice of label owners and A&R men.

Dangerous Woman (With A 45 In Her Hand) One musician who certainly owed his big break to Brownie was his brother, Stick (or Sticks, as the record companies frequently wrote it.) The story has often been told of how, in 1949, J. Mayo Williams unloaded his Harlem label’s remaining stock of Stick’s 1947 recording of ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee’ to a distributor in New Orleans, where it began to receive airplay, and to sell out. Herb Abramson of Atlantic saw an opportunity, and asked Brownie if this Stick McGhee was by any chance a relative. Shortly, Atlantic had recut ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee’, it had reached number 3 in the charts, and Stick McGhee had become Atlantic’s first R&B star

As the decade changed, Brownie McGhee continued to record steadily as a name artist for Savoy, and for assorted labels as a session guitarist, while Sonny Terry appears to have begun the fifties by recording for the nascent Elektra label in the company of Alec Seward. He was also still recording informally with Woody Guthrie; the sessions were sometimes augmented by Guthrie’s acolyte, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and sometimes by Terry’s nephew, J.C. Burris, who had moved to New York in 1949. It has been said¹? that Terry and McGhee began their ‘folk’ period in 1955, shifting from black audiences to white, but it’s clear that both of them had always associated with white ‘urban folk’ musicians from the time of their arrival in New York, although Terry seems to have done so more consistently.

In the early fifties, McGhee and Terry were most closely associated with the clutch of labels owned by Bob and Morty Shad. It is only fair to note, however, that the resulting records, for Jax, Jackson, Harlem and Sittin’ In With, were some of the artists’ best work, whether rocking small group blues or acoustic duo performances. The early fifties can perhaps be summarized as a time of transition. Sessions for black-oriented labels were still plentiful, but Folkways seem to have been anxious to exploit the new long playing technology as a medium for extended documentation. It was in 1952 that Sonny Terry had his biggest hit, in the shape of ‘Hootin’ Blues’ on Gramercy. Jax and Red Robin billed him as ‘Sonny (Hootin) Terry’, and it appears that Savoy even called him in to overdub some whooping on a recording from 1944, so that they could reissue it as a similarly titled ‘Hootin’ The Blues’. Around this period Brownie, and sometimes Sonny, frequently accompanied Ralph Willis during his quite extensive recording career, but his easygoing charm had never resulted in popular acclaim. In January 1954 Terry participated in the last, impromptu studio session by Woody Guthrie.

Terry’s and McGhee’s last extensive engagement with the R&B market was the series of recordings made for Hy Weiss’s Old Town label between 1955 and 1958. As R&B sessions become less frequent, one way to read the discography at this date is to see it as increasingly featuring unusual, one-off sessions, like the brief contributions to Langston Hughes’ historical documentary, the 1957 session with Paul Robeson, or the two days of studio time purchased by TV personality and jazz fan Garry Moore, during which Sonny Terry gained the unlikely honor of making what seems to be the first blues recording with a string section. Sonny was debarred from other employment, and McGhee was also disabled, albeit to a lesser degree, but both of them were hustlers and strivers. It was the market that was changing, and they were still going after anything available. So it was, for instance, that in 1957 Brownie had his turn on Broadway, in Langston Hughes’ musical ‘Simply Heavenly’, and was hired to provide the guitar playing to which Andy Griffith mimed on a couple of numbers in the film ‘A Face In The Crowd’. A grateful Griffith presented McGhee with a Martin D18.

Blues All Around My Head The sessions which can be read as affirming that the market for their music had changed decisively, and become overwhelmingly white, took place in March and November 1957, when they were appearing in the San Francisco production of ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’, and were recommended to Fantasy Records by Barbara Dane.²? Although not quite the first occasion on which they had been jointly billed, these recordings can be seen as marking the moment when Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee became – in the eyes of many in their audience – ‘brownieandsonny.’ Perhaps because they were still working out how to be a ‘folk blues’ act, these Fantasy sessions are musically not very exciting. Also largely unsuccessful was an album for Folkways, also made in 1957, on which the two artists sang in duet extensively for the first time. As if to confirm that big changes were afoot, April 1958 saw the duo arriving in Britain, to tour with Chris Barber’s Jazz Band as replacements for the seriously ill, and soon to be dead, Big Bill Broonzy. The three men were close friends – Studs Terkel had devoted an episode of his radio programme to them in May 1957, and the results were issued on Folkways – and Brownie, for one, was adamant on his arrival in London that he was only making the trip as a favor to Bill. Terry and McGhee were recorded while in Britain, by Nixa, and on their return the following year by UK Columbia, a series of sessions which resulted in some of their best recordings for the ‘new’ audience. Back in the States, their association with Folkways continued, resulting in Sonny Terry’s first recordings on jew’s harp, while 1959 saw their first appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, and the recording of a delightful set of children’s songs for Asman Edwards’ Choice label.

What with sessions at Newport in July, in London in October, and in both New Jersey and Los Angeles in December, it could be argued that the last half of 1959 is when the accusation of over-recording, so often thrown at Terry and McGhee, begins to have some weight. Between December 1959 and October 1960, they were jointly and separately responsible for five and a half albums for Prestige/Bluesville, and Terry played on another by Lightnin’ Hopkins. During this period, they also participated in the Davon ‘super session’ with Hopkins and Big Joe Williams which, its merits notwithstanding, must be among the most over-reissued of all blues albums. 1961 saw further sessions for Choice, for Davon again (the other candidate for most over-reissued session ever), and extensively for Fantasy, at Barbara Dane’s club, Sugar Hill. Things slowed down somewhat in 1962, which by September had produced only some accompaniments (mostly not issued until much later) to Luke ‘Long Gone’ Miles, and another album and a half for Bluesville.

Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee There was a growing white demand for recorded blues, and as yet a shortage of musicians to meet that demand. The presence in New York of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, easily available, fluent performers and, particularly in McGhee’s case, prolific composers, who could be relied on to record a complete album in first takes, was, for Bluesville, an irresistible invitation to go in for intensive recording. The new blues audience, busy discovering Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson and Charley Patton, and soon to be thrilling to the ‘rediscovery’ of Son House, Skip James and others, often reacted dismissively to Terry and McGhee; as already noted, they shared with Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy and Josh White the disadvantage that they were well known in folk and jazz circles, and so could not be seen as the exciting new discoveries of a privileged in-group. They also lacked both aggressive musical energy and unpolished rural backwardness, either or both of which would have generated many bonus points. Nevertheless, there was now a very large audience for their music in live performance, and from 1958 onwards they were touring almost continually, both within and beyond the United States.

Big Road Blues Show 4/12/26: The Woman Is Killing Me – Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee Pt. 3

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Blind Boy Fuller w/ Sonny Terry	Jivin' Big Bill Blues	Sonny Terry 1938-1945
Blind Boy Fuller w/ Sonny Terry	Somebody's Been Talkin'	Blind Boy Fuller Vol. 2
Buddy Moss w/ Brownie McGhee	Joy Rag	The Essential
Sonny Jones w/ Sonny Terry	I'm Pretty Good At It	Blind Boy Fuller Vol. 2
Sonny Terry & Oh Red	Harmonica And Washboard Breakdown	Blues From The Vocalion Vaults
Buddy Moss w/ Sonny Terry	I'm Sittin' Here Tonight	Good Time Blues
Sonny Terry	Don't You Hear Me Callin' You?	Sony Terry Vol. 2 1944-194
Champion Jack Dupree w/ Brownie McGhee	Think You Need A Shot	Early Cuts
Champion Jack Dupree w/ Brownie McGhee	Let's Have A Ball	Early Cuts
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Crow Jane Blues	Sportin' Life Blues
Champion Jack Duprre w/ Brownie McGee	Featherweight Mama	Early Cuts
Sister Ethel Davenport w/ Brownie McGhee	The World Can Do Me No Harm	It's Amazing: The Glorious Female Gospel, 1947-1952
Leroy Dalls w/ Brownie McGee	Your Sweet Man Blues	Down Home Blues Classics 1943-1953
Brownie McGee	Brownie's New Worried Life Blues	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Brownie McGee	C.C Baby	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Brownie McGee	Black Brown & White	78
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Telephone Blues	Whoopin' The Blues : The Capiltal Recordings 1947-50
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Airplane Blues	Whoopin' The Blues : The Capiltal Recordings 1947-50
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Dirty Mistreater, Don't You Know	Whoopin' The Blues : The Capiltal Recordings 1947-50
Stick McGhee/Brownie McGee/Sonny Terry	She's Gone	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Ralph Willis w/ Brownie McGee	Too Late To Scream And Shout	Shake That Thing!
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	The Woman Is Killing Me	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	I Feel So Good	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Bob Gaddy w/ Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry	I (Believe You Got A Sidekick	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Bob Gaddy w/ Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry	Bicycle Boogie	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Champion Jack Dupree w/ Brownie McGee	Heart Breaking Woman	Early Cuts
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	A Letter To Lightnin' Hopkins	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Brownie McGhee	I'm Gonna Move Across The River	The Derby Records Story 1949-1954
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Stranger's Blues	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Brownie's Blues (Lordy Lord)	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Pawnshop Blues	Sittin In With Harlem Jade & Jax Vol. 1
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	A Man Is Nothing But a Fool	The Folkways Years 1944-1963
Allen Bunn and Trio w/ Sonny Terry	She'll Be Sorry	Complete Tarheel Slim
Allen Bunn and Trio w/ Sonny Terry	The Guy With the 45	Complete Tarheel Slim
Sticks & Brownie McGhee	Wee Wee Hours - Part 1	Sticks McGhee 1951-1959
Ralph Willis w/ Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry	Amen	Shake That Thing!
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	Tell Me Baby	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	So Much Trouble	New York Blues And R&B 1947-1955
Sonny Terry	Hootin' The Blues	78

Show Notes:

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, 1971 London

Today is the third show devoted to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee who forged a decades long partnership in the early 40s, cutting numerous recordings together as well as recording independently. Back in 2011 I did air a show that spotlighted the music the duo recorded shortly after they arrived in New York and the artists they worked with such as Champion Jack Dupree, Bobby Harris, Bobby Gaddy and others. I’ve decided to end the shows at 1960, when the duo became firmly entrenched in the folk blues style and the records became a bit predictable and less exciting. That’s not to say they didn’t make good records after this period, they certainly did, but it becomes a pursuit of diminishing gains.

Man Ain't Nothin' But A Fool The first two shows took us up to 1949. As I put those two shows to bed, I finally located my copy of the discography, That’s The Stuff: The Recordings of Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Sticks McGee and J.C. Burris by Chris Smith. I found there were several items I overlooked so we start off with several fines sides that got glossed over in the first two shows. Today’s notes come from Chris’s book which includes an excellent overview of the duo’s career. As Chris writes, the duo was “in varying degrees at different times – a creative partnership, but it was also a marketing device, a means to obtain work from (mostly) white audiences who were keen on the idea of musical soulmates, often seeing the partnership as a metaphor for the liberal dream of universal brotherhood.”

Brownie's New Worried Life Blues One musician who certainly owed his big break to Brownie was his brother, Stick (or Sticks, as the record companies frequently wrote it.) The story has often been told of how, in 1949, J. Mayo Williams unloaded his Harlem label’s remaining stock of Stick’s 1947 recording of ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee’ to a distributor in New Orleans, where it began to receive airplay, and to sell out. Herb Abramson of Atlantic saw an opportunity, and asked Brownie if this Stick McGhee was by any chance a relative. Shortly, Atlantic had recut ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee’, it had reached number 3 in the charts, and Stick McGhee had become Atlantic’s first R&B star

"I" (Believe You Got A Sidekick) The sessions which can be read as affirming that the market for their music had changed decisively, and become overwhelmingly white, took place in March and November 1957, when they were appearing in the San Francisco production of ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’, and were recommended to Fantasy Records by Barbara Dane.²? Although not quite the first occasion on which they had been jointly billed, these recordings can be seen as marking the moment when Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee became – in the eyes of many in their audience – ‘brownieandsonny.’ Perhaps because they were still working out how to be a ‘folk blues’ act, these Fantasy sessions are musically not very exciting. Also largely unsuccessful was an album for Folkways, also made in 1957, on which the two artists sang in duet extensively for the first time. As if to confirm that big changes were afoot, April 1958 saw the duo arriving in Britain, to tour with Chris Barber’s Jazz Band as replacements for the seriously ill, and soon to be dead, Big Bill Broonzy. The three men were close friends – Studs Terkel had devoted an episode of his radio programme to them in May 1957, and the results were issued on Folkways – and Brownie, for one, was adamant on his arrival in London that he was only making the trip as a favor to Bill. Terry and McGhee were recorded while in Britain, by Nixa, and on their return the following year by UK Columbia, a series of sessions which resulted in some of their best recordings for the ‘new’ audience. Back in the States, their association with Folkways continued, resulting in Sonny Terry’s first recordings on jew’s harp, while 1959 saw their first appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, and the recording of a delightful set of children’s songs for Asman Edwards’ Choice label.

A Letter To Lightnin' Hopkins There was a growing white demand for recorded blues, and as yet a shortage of musicians to meet that demand. The presence in New York of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, easily available, fluent performers and, particularly in McGhee’s case, prolific composers, who could be relied on to record a complete album in first takes, was, for Bluesville, an irresistible invitation to go in for intensive recording. The new blues audience, busy discovering Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson and Charley Patton, and soon to be thrilling to the ‘rediscovery’ of Son House, Skip James and others, often reacted dismissively to Terry and McGhee; as already noted, they shared with Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy and Josh White the disadvantage that they were well known in folk and jazz circles, and so could not be seen as the exciting new discoveries of a privileged in-group. They also lacked both aggressive musical energy and unpolished rural backwardness, either or both of which would have generated many bonus points. Nevertheless, there was now a very large audience for their music in live performance, and from 1958 onwards they were touring almost continually, both within and beyond the United States.

Big Road Blues Show 4/5/26: Raggin’ The Blues – Forgotten Blues Heroes Pt. 34

April 5, 2026March 28, 2026 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Ramblin' Thomas	So Lonesome	Acoustic Blues Vol. 1 The Roots Of It All
Ramblin' Thomas	Hard To Rule Woman Blues	Blues Images Vol. 18
Ramblin' Thomas	Sawmill Moan	Blues Images Vol. 7
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Jailhouse Fire Blues	Country Blues: The Essential
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Shaggy Dog Blues	When The Levee Breaks
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Snatch It Back Blues	Blues Images Vol. 10
Smith Casey	Shorty George	Alan Lomax: Blues Songbook
Smith Casey	Hesitating Blues	Matchbox Bluesmaster Series, Vol. 9: Jack O'Diamonds
Smith Casey	I Wouldn't Mind Dyin', If Dyin' Was All	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Blind Lemon's Song	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Alabama Bound	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	He Rambled	Black Texicans
Kid West & Joe Harris	Kid West Blues	I Can Eagle Rock
Kid West & Joe Harris	A-Natural Blues	I Can Eagle Rock
Ramblin' Thomas	Poor Boy Blues	Ramblin' Thomas & The Dallas Blues Singers
Ramblin' Thomas	No Job Blues	Blues Images Vol. 1
Ramblin' Thomas	Lock And Key Blues	Ramblin' Thomas & The Dallas Blues Singers
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Number Three Blues	Buddy Boy Hawkins & His Buddies 1927-1934
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Raggin' The Blues	Buddy Boy Hawkins & His Buddies 1927-1934
Smith Casey	Two White Horses	Matchbox Bluesmaster Series, Vol. 9: Jack O'Diamonds
Smith Casey	Jack O' Diamonds	Matchbox Bluesmaster Series, Vol. 9: Jack O'Diamonds
Smith Casey	When I Git Home	Matchbox Bluesmaster Series, Vol. 9: Jack O'Diamonds
Pete Harris	Jack O' Diamonds [Take 1	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Is You Mad At Me	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Standing On The Border	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Tom Bell	I'm Worried Now And I Won't Be Worried Long	I Can Eagle Rock
Tom Bell	I Can Eagle Rock, Lord I Can Ball The Jack	I Can Eagle Rock
Tom Bell	Storm In Arkansas	I Can Eagle Rock
Ramblin' Thomas	Hard Dallas Blues	Ramblin' Thomas & The Dallas Blues Singers
Ramblin' Thomas	Listening to Ramblin' Thomas Ground Hog Blues	Personal Recording
Buddy Boy Hawkins	How Come Mama	Screamin' & Hollerin' The Blues
Buddy Boy Hawkins	A Rag	Buddy Boy Hawkins & His Buddies 1927-1934
Buddy Boy Hawkins	Voice Throwin' Blues	Times Ain't Like They Used To Be Vol. 1
Pete Harris	Thirty Days In Jail	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Square Dance Calls	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Pete Harris	Carrie	Texas Field Recordings 1934-1939
Moanin' Bernice Edwards w/ Ramblin' Thomas	Two-Way Mind	Texas Piano, Vol. 1 1923-1935
Moanin' Bernice Edwards w/ Ramblin' Thomas	Jack Of All Trades	The Piano Blues Vol. Four: The Thomas Family 1925-1929
Smith Casey	Santa Fe Blues	Matchbox Bluesmaster Series, Vol. 9: Jack O'Diamonds

Show Notes:

Jailhouse Fire Blues — Chicago Defender June 25, 1927

Today’s show is part of a semi-regular, long-running feature I call Forgotten Blues Heroes that spotlights great, but little remembered and little recorded blues artists that don’t really fit into my weekly themed shows. Today we spotlight several artists who recorded commercially and in the field between 1927 and 1940. Willard “Ramblin” Thomas hailed from Louisiana and recorded fourteen sides for Paramount in 1928 in Chicago and four sides for Victor in 1932 in Dallas. Walter “Buddy Boy” Hawkins recorded twelve songs between 1927 and 1929 for Paramount. The remaining featured artists were recorded in the field by John and Alan Lomax. Smith Casey recorded eleven sides for the Library of Congress in 1939 at the Clemens State Farm in Brazoria, Texas. Pete Harris cut over a dozen sides in Richmond, Texas in 1934. The duo of Joe Harris and Kid West recorded eleven sides in Shreveport in 1940. Tom Bell cut one track in 1937 and seven sides in Livingston, Alabama in 1940 not long after the Harris & West session.

Today’s information on Willard Ramblin’ Thomas and Buddy Boy Hawkins comes directly from Alex van der Tuuk’s book The New Paramount Book of Blues. The son of Joel Thomas and Laura Patterson, Willard Thomas was born on a farm on Marshall Road, just north of Logansport, De Soto Parish, Louisiana, in 1901. Willard’s parents were sharecroppers, raising cotton, and some corn and vegetables for their cattle. His mother and sisters were religious, and although there was a lot of music in their home, his father would not allow his children to visit barrelhouses. Said Willard’s younger brother Jesse Thomas in a 1992 interview: “[If] you played the blues, and didn’t play a gospel tune, you was working for the devil. And that’s what my Daddy didn’t like. He thought that would make us be bad boys. We would do it anyway.” Willard’s father played the fiddle in a string band at weekend house parties, and there was an old guitar in the house: when seven-year-old Jesse picked it up, Howard, Joel Jr. and Willard were already playing. Jesse never played with his elder brothers, because their styles were too different. There were “several people down in Logansport played that style with a bottle[neck],” but Willard only picked up slide technique after he had left home.

Mo Job Blues — Chicago Defender March 2, 1928

Jesse left for Shreveport around 1926, and his brother Willard had probably preceded him. By 1930, when he told the census enumerator that he was a “musician, Victor Co.,” Jesse was living in Fort Worth, Texas, and had recorded in Dallas in 1929. In the late 1920s, Willard Thomas seems to have moved as far north as Oklahoma City, where Jesse joined him before they both moved back to Dallas. He seems to have done a lot of playing around Shreveport and in Monroe, and he often traveled from Shreveport to Dallas as Jesse recalled: “He spent a good time in both of them, about the same. He’d mostly get hisself a room and play on the streets, in a barbershop, on a street corner, or even in the alley. In those days it wasn’t against the law to play on the street. …When he left, he picked up that slide, playing that slide, bottleneck type. I don’t know where he really got that from, unless he saw some of the other guitar players doing it. And he said one time that when he heard that sound that’s what he liked – slide. He was off on his own, traveling around.” Willard’s slide technique is similar to that of Oscar “Buddy” Woods, who arrived in Shreveport around 1925, and it can be assumed that they played together in Shreveport. In “Jig Head Blues” Willard sings about a notorious area of Shreveport, “Dirty Thirty,” also known locally as “D-3-0,” a group of thirty shotgun houses behind the Antioch Baptist Church, with a long history of gambling, prostitution, and other illegal activities.

Thomas recorded for Paramount in Chicago around February 1928, having perhaps been discovered playing in Dallas’ Deep Ellum district. He is thought to have auditioned for Robert T. Ashford (1883–1976), an African-American music store owner and sales representative for Paramount, who also scouted talent. Although Thomas was heavily influenced by the recordings of Lonnie Johnson, his acquaintance with Blind Lemon Jefferson, who may have played a role in getting him an audition, can be heard in some of his songs. Jesse recalled: “He was in Dallas at that time, and they sent him up here to Chicago, and he made records, and he came back to Dallas after he had made the records, and he was traveling around playing music by himself.” All eight titles from the first session were issued within five months, beginning with Paramount 12609, “No Job Blues” b/w “Back Gnawing Blues.” It was first advertised in the Chicago Defender of April 7, 1928, and his second release followed in early May. In late November 1928, Willard returned to Chicago for a second recording session. Paramount were perhaps encouraged by his initial sales and his ability to come up with original material.

So Lonesone — Chicago Defender June 30, 1928

On two sides by Moanin’ Bernice Edwards Thomas may be the under-recorded guitarist who joins the pianist accompanying Edwards on “Two Way Mind Blues” and “Jack Of All Trades.” His last Paramount release, “Good Time Blues” b/w “New Way Of Living Blues” (Paramount 12752), advertised in the Chicago Defender of May 11, 1929. Bernice Edwards said that Willard Thomas stayed in Dallas for another year and then moved away. As Jesse said: “After he made records for Paramount, you know, Paramount went out of business. And then he was out of the recording business for quite a while, until he got with R.C.A. Victor.” When Willard made his last recordings in Dallas on February 9, 1932, he was living in Fort Worth, as were his brothers Howard and Jesse, who was then playing in a small band. Two of the four songs Rambling Thomas cut for Victor were “Ground Hog Blues” and “Ground Hog Blues No. 2,” both of them skillfully constructed thematic lyrics. It is intriguing to note that Jimmie Rodgers had recorded three days earlier, and that his “Blue Yodel No. 10 (Ground Hog Rootin’ In My Back Yard)” includes a stanza very similar to one in Thomas’ “Ground Hog Blues.” Jesse said that “after he had made records with Victor, he went to Houston, Texas. He played around awhile and then went to Memphis.” He went together with his cousin, Otis Harris, who had earlier recorded in Dallas, Texas, in December 1928. Willard Thomas remained in Memphis, where he is said to have died from tuberculosis in 1944. His death certificate is said to have been found, but if so, the information it contains has not been published. In its absence, we can only note that other dates of death are reported: Jesse Thomas said that he died “sometimes [sic] in the 1940s of T.B.”

Although Walter Hawkins’ 1929 Paramount recordings were issued under his real name, with composer credits to “Hawkins,” the Gennett ledgers list him as Buddy Boy Hawkins, the credit on records from his earlier Paramount sessions of April and September 1927. No composer credits were given on the earlier record labels. It’s possible that the musician Walter Hawkins is also the unmarried laborer, born in Arkansas and aged forty-three in 1940, who lived in Greenwood, Leflore County, Mississippi from at least 1935 to 1940. His whereabouts after 1940 are unknown.

Snatch It Back Blues — Chicago Defender May 14, 1927

Hawkins recorded twelve songs between 1927 and 1929 for Paramount. Around 1966, Henry Vestine was going door to door in search of old records, and heard of a bluesman named Hawkins in the Blytheville, Arkansas, area. It was never established that this was Walter “Buddy Boy” Hawkins, but word got back to the New York collectors, who decided that he was. The mention of Birmingham, Alabama in “Snatch It Back Blues” led Gayle Dean Wardlow to ask Birmingham talent scout Harry Charles about Hawkins. Charles confirmed that he had found Hawkins playing on the streets of Birmingham, and sent him to Chicago to record in 1927. Charles, who referred to Hawkins as “poor Buddy Boy,” could not recall whether he was from Arkansas.

Hawkins may be the Will Hawkins, alias Walter Hawkins, who was jailed for grand larceny in Montgomery County, Alabama in February 1921, and released a year later. Aged twenty-two when sentenced, he was therefore born circa 1898. What can be said for certain, thanks to a recent discovery, is that Buddy Boy Hawkins did indeed bring “A Rag Blues” from Jackson, Mississippi to the Gennett studios on June 14, 1929. A newspaper story from Jackson, two weeks before the session, speaks for itself: “Walter Hawkins was arrested by officers as a vagrant and brought before the judge yesterday. What do you do for a living?” queried the judge. I’m a musician,’ replied Walter. And as Walter’s case was the last on the list, the judge decided to see for himself. Walter unconcernedly picked up his guitar which he had brought along, struck up a chord of some popular negro song and raised his voice to a high pitch. Again he played a selection and the judge was enjoying the show. To cap the entertainment, Walter showed the group of lawyers and policemen are art of throwing his voice. Everybody was happy and Walter left with nickels and dimes, better off than when he arrived at the station. The judge pitched in a quarter.”

Kid West & Joe Harris

The sides by Smith Casey, Pete Harris, Kid West & Joe Harris and Tom Bell were field recordings captured by Alan Lomax. I have no almost no information on Harris who cut over a dozen sides in Richmond, Texas in 1934 for John Lomax. Harris was born in 1900 or 1901 and was recorded near Richmond, Texas, a small town along the railroad tracks where many singers visited. At the end of “Alabama Bound” Lomax announces that “this record an several others was made by Pete Harris of Richmond, Texas who has worked all his life on the ranch of John M. Moore of the same town. Pete is 33 years old, the grandson of a pure African and is not able to either read or write.”

Tom Bell who recorded seven sides on November 3, 1940 for Lomax. From Oil City the Lomaxes traveled to Mississippi where they recorded Lucius Curtis and Willie Ford in Natchez before they wended their way to Livingston AL, and eventually Atlanta GA. In Livingston he recorded Tom bell of whom he wrote: “He worked for a dairyman, moved many cows twice a day, and spent his spare time picking a guitar and singing for dances and other groups. He recorded… at two different periods, one afternoon before milking time and again in the evening. Ask where he got the words for his songs, he said ‘sometimes I put these jes’ what come to mind.’”

Joe Harris and Kid West in hotel room, Shreveport, Louisiana

Smith Casey recorded eleven sides for the Library of Congress in 1939 at the Clemens State Farm in Brazoria, Texas. A single comment is documented in the field notes “I learned my songs on the streets in Jackson and San Jacinto counties.” Casey was the son of William Smith and Phyllis Thomas and was born on August 16, 1895 probably at Riverside, Texas. He had Seven Sisters. According to Lomaxes field notes: “On Saturday, April 15 we drove over to Clemens State Farm a few miles away to arrange for a meeting with the “boys” – Negro convicts stationed on the Farm. On Saturday the “boys” who were working near headquarters were hauling dirt, grading, cleaning ditches and otherwise improving the grounds around a new brick and steel dormitory. A group of ditch-diggers was working in time to the musical calls of the leader. We arranged to return to make records on the next day, Sunday, and returned to West Columbia to rent batteries for power, the dormitory being wired for d. c.. When we arrived at the Farm the next day the “boys” were ready for us. Mechanics from the white convicts, who had quarters on the second floor, helped adjust the machinery. The barber and the dentist furnished counter attractions but our “show” gave the “boys” greater diversion. Gradually after suggestions from Mr. Lomax as to what kind of music he wished to record, musicians and singers volunteered or were pushed forward by their contemporaries. Some of the ‘boys’, Ace Johnson and Smith Cason [Casey] for example, already had experience before the microphone since they were sometimes used on the programme called ‘Behind The Walls’ broadcast from the Huntsville, Texas Penitentiary on Wednesday nights. After two hours we stopped for lunch, we being served with the white guards, and after lunch we worked an hour or so until the time came for base-ball practice and preaching.”

The reason Casey was sent to prison was for shooting his partner Abe Hopkins, brother of Lightnin’: As Hopkins related to McCormick: “‘You damn right I know that son of a bitch,’ said Lightnin’ Hopkins explosively. ‘He’s the one that killed my brother Abe. Ask me do I know Smith Casey? You goddamn sure know I do! That son of a bitch ate my food, slept in my house, then went and kilt my brother Abe. That bandy leg bastard shoulda been hung. He didn’t have no nose cause the pox had it eat it away and I did pray God that the pox could-a eat all stead of just his nose. That bandy-leg runt went and killed Abe and I would have killed him myself If I could-a found him after he got out from the penitentiary.’” He died on September 11th 1950.

Joe Harris & Kid West

The following information comes from the notes to I Can Eagle Rock (Jook Joint Blues From Alabama And Louisiana: Library Of Congress Recordings 1940-1941). The notes were were based on research by Paul Oliver, Bruce Bastin and John Cowley. When John Lomax and Ruby Terril Lomax came there in 1940 the population had hit the seventy-five thousand mark and blacks had tipped thirty-five per cent. If they’d stayed longer they would doubtless have found many more musicians among the black community that centered on the West Allendale and Cedar Grove sections. But they stayed only two days, the Tuesday and Wednesday the eighth and ninth of October, before going on to Oil City, the site of a 1906 strike. Writing a few days later Ruby Lomax reported: “After jiggling around considerably in East Texas with Sacred Harp Conventions and a Negro Baptist Assn. and guitar-pickers and an ex-slave, we struck out for Shreveport. Except for some pretty newsboys’ cries, all our recordings there were made by Negroes – blues singers from ‘Texas Avenue’, French Creole singers, guitar and mandolin pickers.”

Tom Bell

Though John Lomax’s autobiography was published a few years later and therefore could have thrown light on how he found the Shreveport singers, the event was obviously insufficiently memorable for him to include. But it is likely that he merely encountered them on the street and later followed them to a bar. His field notes report that “Oscar (Buddy) Woods, Joe Harris and Kid West are all professional Negro guitarists and singers of Texas Avenue, Shreveport, Louisiana. The songs I have recorded are among those they use to cajole nickles from the pockets of listeners. One night I sat an hour where the group was playing in a restaurant where drinks were served. I was the only person who dropped a contribution in the can. I doubt if the proprietor paid them anything.” This brief note suggests that all three musicians were working together as a group. But if so, it seems not to have occurred to Lomax to record them as a three-piece band. Instead, Oscar Woods was recorded on the Tuesday; Joe Harris and Kid West on the following day.

Big Road Blues Show 3/29/26: That’s the Stuff – Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee Pt. 2

March 29, 2026April 4, 2026 Jeff Leave a comment

ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Sonny Terry	Lonesome Train	Sonny Terry 1938-1945
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Sweet Woman	Sonny Terry 1938-1945
Sonny Terry/ Brownie McGhee/Woody Guthrie	Red River	Sonny Terry Vol. 2 1944-1949
Blind Boy Fuller w/ Sonny Terry	You Got To Have Your Dollar	Blind Boy Fuller Vol. 2
Brother George And His Sanctified Singers	No Stranger Now	Blind Boy Fuller Vol. 2
Brownie McGee	My Barkin' Bulldog Blues	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Prison Woman Blues	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Back Door Stranger	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	It Must Be Love	Harlem Troubadours
Brownie McGee	Swing, Soldier, Swing #1	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	I'm A Black Woman's Man No. 2	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Key To My Door	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Million Lonesome Women	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Workingman's Blues	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Back Home Blues	The Complete Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGee	Deep Sea River	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Leadbelly & Sonny Terry	That´s the Stuff (Watch Out	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	Knockabout Blues (Carolina Blues)	Down Home Blues Classics Vol. 6: New York & The East Coast States 1943-1953
Leadbelly & Sonny Terry	Careless Love	Leadbelly Vol. 5 1938-1942
Leadbelly & Sonny Terry	Outskirts Of Town	Leadbelly Vol. 3 1939-1947
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee	John Henry	Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection
Brownie McGee	Movin' to Kansas City	Circle Blues Session 1946
Brownie & Sticks McGhee	Rocks in My Bed	Circle Blues Session 1946
Brownie & Sticks McGhee	Tennessee Shuffle	Circle Blues Session 1946
Brownie McGhee	So Long Baby	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Brownie McGhee	Dollar Bill	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Brownie McGhee	I'm Talking About It	New York Blues 1946-1948
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee	All Alone Blues	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Brownie McGhee	Auto Mechanic Blues	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Brownie McGhee	Aunt Jane's Blues	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Brownie McGhee	My Fault	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Sticks & Brownie McGhee	Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee Drinking Wine	Sticks McGhee 1947-1951
Sticks & Brownie McGhee	Blues Mixture	Sticks McGhee 1947-1951
Brownie McGhee	Wrong Man Blues	Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee 1938-48
Sonny Terry	Goin' Down Slow	Down Home Blues: New York, Cincinnati & the Northeastern States
Big Chief Ellis & Brownie McGhee	Big Chief's Blues	New York City Blues 1940-1950

Show Notes:

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee

Today we kick off several shows devoted to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee who forged a decades long partnership in the early 40s, cutting numerous recordings together as well as recording independently. Back in 2011 I did air a show that spotlighted the music the duo recorded shortly after they arrived in New York and the artists they worked with such as Champion Jack Dupree, Bobby Harris, Bobby Gaddy and others. We will not duplicate that period. The first two shows take us up to 1949 which is where are notes end. As I put these two shows to bed I finally located my copy of the discography That’s The Stuff: The Recordings of Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Sticks McGee and J.C. Burris by Chris Smith. There are quite a few early items I overlooked so in part three we will open up with some of these numbers. The book also includes an excellent introduction which I will quote at length on future installments.

The duo recorded with many other artists, starting with Terry backing Blind Boy Fuller and later Leadbelly, of whom McGhee also recorded with. Their earliest recordings together trace back to 1941. The duo moved to New York City in 1942 moving in with Huddie and Martha Ledbetter. Initial recordings were for the Library of Congress and for Terry regular sessions for Moe Asch, who later set up the Folkways label. They recorded sides together throughout 1946 but after that that mainly pursued their own recording careers although they did record quite a bit together through the mid-50’s. Starting around 1946 Brownie became an in-demand session guitarist, backing New York-based artists like Big Chief Ellis, his brother Stick McGhee, Champion Jack Dupree, Leroy Dallas, and Bob Gaddy among others. Terry also did some session work during this period but to a lesser extent than Brownie. In 1946, Brownie cut a series of sessions for Alert, many of which were duets with Sonny Terry. Thereafter, each man mainly pursued his own recording career, though their paths crossed fairly often. McGhee stayed with Savoy; Terry recorded for Capitol. In late 1948, Bob Shad engaged McGhee for his Sittin’ In With label, where he cut his own sessions and backed Sister Ethel Davenport, Leroy Dallas and Big Chief Ellis. In 1950 he returned to Savoy where he intermittently continued to record until 1955. Sometime around 1951/2, both he and Sonny Terry signed with the Jax and Jackson labels, owned by Bob Shad’s brother Morty. As well as records by Terry and McGhee, there were singles by bassist/vocalist Bobby Harris and pianist Bob Gaddy. The same musicians were “Night Owls” for Terry, “Jook Block Busters” for McGhee and ‘”Alley Cats” for Gaddy. After a period of commercial recordings, the duo achieved fame as folk artists playing primarily for white audiences starting in the 60s, which is likely what they are best known for.

That's The Stuff

The elder of the two, Sonny Terry, was born in Greenboro, Georgia on October 24, 1911, and was christened Saunders Terrell. When he was six his family moved to Rockingham, North Carolina where, at the age of eleven, he lost an eye during a children’s game. Five years later he was blinded in the other eye when a lump of iron was hurled at his face. This total blindness, coming as it did at a very impressionable age, caused him to become withdrawn, taking solace in “mocking” train and animal sounds on the cheap harmonica which he had learned to play as a child. “When I was about six,” he told an interviewer, “he took me to town one day and I sees a fellow there playing harmonica. And man, I like to have jumped outa the wagon. I wanna find and git that man! My father say, ‘Wait a minute, I’ll buy you one, boy. You can’t take his’.” He learned his father’s tunes and looked further for inspiration: “Mockin’ the trains ’bout the first piece I learn,” he told Tony Standish in 1958. “I used to hear the freight coming by…. and I’d say I wish I could play like that.”

Sonny’s “big break” occurred in 1938 while he was a house guest of record scout J. B. Long. In 1938 John Hammond, the man responsible for Bessie Smith’s return to record in 1933, paid a visit to Long’s Burlington home on a talent finding trip, in company with the then president of Columbia Records, Goddard Lieberson. Sonny so impressed Hammond with his harmonica virtuosity that he was asked to appear at a gospel, jazz and blues concert to be held at New York’s Carnegie Hall. That winter Terry, with washboard player George “Oh Red” Washington acting as his eyes, travelled north to his New York venue. On Christmas Eve 1938 the unknown Sonny Terry received rapturous applause from the capacity white audience with his almost unintelligible, whooping falsetto delivery of the archaic “Mountain Blues” and “The New John Henry”, the sole accompaniment being his wailing harmonica and feet tapping out the rhythm. This success led to Sonny making his first commercial recordings under his own name (for Okeh Records) in March and June 1940. (He had previously been recorded by the Library of Congress but these were documentary rather than commercial recordings). That same year, again probably as a result of his Carnegie Hall appearance, he was given a “novelty” part in the Broadway show Finian’s Rainbow.

During his late teens Sonny moved to the tobacco town of Durham, North Carolina, to stay with a blind guitarist friend whom he’d met many years earlier in Rockingham. This guitarist was Fulton Allen, better known to most by his recording name of Blind Boy Fuller. “I was playing on one side of the street and he was on the other. So me and him got together, that was about three pm and we played till about six pm. He told me, ‘Come to Durham’.”. He had a brother in Durham, so he went to stay, got a job in a factory and played at house parties and on the street. “Had a gal name of Dora – Dora Martin – played guitar and we’d sing the blues.” For many years the two men, together with a third, Blind Gary Davis, busked in the streets of Durham playing for (in Sonny’s words) “some spending change” from the cigarette factory workers. In July 1935 both Fuller and Davis were signed to the American Recording Company (A.R.C.) by a local talent scout and were taken to New York for a recording session. On a return visit two years later Blind Boy Fuller took Sonny Terry with him. At least five of the eleven songs Fuller cut at that session were accompanied by Sonny’s harmonica. From then on Terry went with Fuller to all his recording dates right up to, and including, Fuller’s last of 1940.

Train Whistle Blues Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee first met at J.B. Long’s insistence. “He didn’t put us together,” McGhee recalled, “he had me and Webb to meet Fuller and Sonny. Second week in April in 1939, 211 West Davis Street. Behind his store, one Sunday.” Long thought highly of Brownie, beyond the likelihood of him replacing the ailing Fuller. “I thought Brownie had a big future and I wanted him to get a break. I didn’t have any idea of takin’ advantage of him. I could’a said, ‘Look, I’m not gonna carry you around at 10%’. I just thought a lot of him. He was a prince. I never tried to get a dime off him. I’m just proud that he got started.” The first commercial record to feature Sonny singing in his natural voice was “Sweet Woman”, accompanied on guitar by Brownie. Then in December 1944, the pair recorded for Savoy as Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Brownie sang four songs and Sonny cut two harmonica instrumentals. Even now, their pairing was by no means cast in stone, for each had other projects. Brownie cut two sessions with Champion Jack Dupree and Wilbert ‘Big Chief’ Ellis and both accompanied Leadbelly on a 1946 session. At about the same time, Brownie and brother Stick joined pianist Dan Burley’s Skiffle Boys on a rocking session that bravely ignored the many flaws in their performance. When Burley had had enough, the two guitarists cut six numbers of their own.

A slightly younger man, Walter Brown McGhee, nicknamed “Brownie”, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on November 30, 1915. When he was four, he suffered a polio attack which affected the growth of his right leg, leaving him with a permanent limp. As a result of this handicap, he too avoided playing with other children because he couldn’t join in their games and found consolation in experimenting at culling tunes from fiddles and a home-made five string banjo. By the age of eight, Brownie had taught himself how to play his father’s guitar and also the rudiments of the piano. Soon after the McGhee family moved to Lenoir City, Tennessee, where Brownie finished the primary education he’d begun in Knoxville, and played organ for the Solomon Temple Baptist Church.

Before long the family moved again, this time to Marysville, Tennessee, where Brownie began high school, but his overwhelming desire to play music bested him, and in 1928 he left home, forsaking his studies for a minstrel’s life. With his guitar on his back the young Brownie McGhee took to hoboing around Tennessee, finding work singing in beer taverns, roadhouses, medicine shows, mining camps, in fact anywhere music was in demand, playing blues for blacks and hillbilly music for whites. In the early thirties, Brownie’s travels brought him full circle back to his parent’s farm, helping on the land by day and singing with a local gospel quartet, The Golden Voices, at weekends. Some years later Brownie was on the move again (although he managed to graduate from high school in 1936).

Brownie moved back to Knoxville, where he formed a small group which included harmonica player Jordan Webb. The group didn’t stay together long, and he and Webb crossed the state line into North Carolina, eventually ending up in Burlington where Webb introduced Brownie to Blind Boy Fuller’s washboard player, the albino George “Oh Red” Washington. It was through Washington that Brownie gained an introduction to talent scout J. B. Long. The latter was greatly interested in the similarity of style between Brownie and Blind Boy Fuller, who at that time was in poor health. When it seemed clear that the then popular Fuller wasn’t getting any better, Long recorded Brownie singing in a carbon-copy Blind Boy Fuller style. The following year (1941) Fuller died, and three months later Brownie was recalled to the Chicago studios to cut more records, including one called “The Death Of Blind Boy Fuller” which was issued as by “Blind Boy Fuller No. 2”.

On October 22, 1941, Brownie was back in Okeh’s New York studios to record more blues and present in the studio at the same time, due to record after him, was Sonny Terry, an artist Brownie had briefly met in the late thirties through their mutual friendship with Blind Boy Fuller. Brownie had brought his own harmonica player Jordan Webb to the studio but nevertheless he invited Sonny to play second harmonica on one song, letting him take over the role completely on another. A permanent partnership began between the two men during 1942, when Brownie was asked by J. B. Long to act as Sonny’s lead-boy on a trip both had to make between Durham and Washington DC in order to appear at a concert with the famous Huddie “Leadbelly” Leadbetter. In May 1942, Terry took part in a Washington DC concert with Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. J.B. Long asked McGhee to accompany Terry. While they were there, Alan Lomax recorded them, along with Leadbelly, for the Library of Congress. Sonny sang John Henry and played two short goes at Fox Chase, while Brownie sang The Red Cross Store. Soon after, the pair were probably offered work in New York and left the South, never to return.

Terry and McGhee’s first years in New York were busy. Sonny hung out with Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, and Brownie made concerted efforts to pursue a recording career. In 1946 he began a series of sessions that resulted in some fifteen singles being released on the Alert label, fourteen in numerical sequence. With Sonny often in attendance, along with bassist Pops Foster and another guitarist who could have been either Ralph Willis or brother Stick. In 1946, Brownie cut a series of sessions for Alert, many of which were duets with Sonny Terry. Thereafter, each man mainly pursued his own recording career, though their paths crossed fairly often. McGhee stayed with Savoy; Terry recorded for Capitol.

Auto Mechanic Blues Brownie set up his own guitar school. “It was called ‘Home of the Blues’, on 125th Street. I did that for five, six years and had a lot of students. It was supposed to have been a production company, to develop black singers on how to construct a blues song to tell a story. If you thought you had a song in mind, I wanted to know why – what created it? People’d come in with some beautiful ideas and I’d help them express it in writing, and then I’d secure a copyright for them, help them sell it, record it for them, book them, see that they got paid.

In 1945, the ex-pugilist, singer and pianist Champion Jack Dupree arrived in New York. In May 1947 Dupree appeared on Brownie’s first session for Savoy since December 1944. Two weeks later, Sonny cut another session for Capitol with Stick McGhee and Baby Dodds. Before 1947 ended both men had further sessions with their labels. Sonny made no recordings in 1948, either on his own or as a sideman. Brownie managed only a handful. Early in 1948, he cut Robbie-Doby Boogie for Savoy, which celebrated the advent of black players into major league baseball. Next up (released alongside Robbie-Doby Boogie) was My Fault, Brownie’s biggest hit for the label.